Shanti Atkins, a 23-year-old Victoria native, has won the CBA’s Viscount Bennett Fellowship for graduate legal studies for the 1998-99 academic term. Ms. Atkins was selected from a field of 38 legal scholars across Canada. She will pursue an LL.M. degree from Harvard University in alternate dispute resolution and mediation.

Described as a ‘livewire’, Ms. Atkins participated on the Queen’s University Gale Moot team where her superior advocacy skills and her “confidence, poise and ability to persuade” were cited. A student mediator in the Kingston Small Claims Court, Ms. Atkins was also a volunteer arbitrator, responsible for judging the merits of legal papers for an industrial relations course.

Valued at $20,000 the fellowship is awarded annually to Canadian students to encourage high standards of legal education, training and ethics.

This article was published in the June 1998 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2006, all rights reserved.